Sandman
by Trench Kamen
Summary: The ghost said the Sandman would be Subaru's harshest judge. And, through heavy introspection, Subaru is starting to unravel the Opera Ghost's warning to live his life and reclaim his own identity, before it is too late. Complete.
1. The Sandman's Judgment

I think you know the drill by now_. Tokyo Babylon / X_ are copyright CLAMP. For the guest ghost appearance, _Phantom of the Opera_ was originally written by Gaston Leroux and was widely popularized by Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage-musical adaptation of the novel.

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_"We are a vessel of the sum of our experiences; that is the part of our identity that evolves. Those experiences correlated with our native psychological natures—our cores—become who we are. And that is why people can still love us for who we are no matter how much we go through over the years."_

_I read that somewhere in a literature class, I think. I wish it really was that simple._

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"You're saying you think I don't let go of things easily enough; is that it?"

"That's not entirely the point, Sumeragi-san." Erik stopped walking through the Opera House catacombs and turned to face Subaru, decisively rapping his cane to rest between his boots and taking a deep breath through his masked nose—a purely habitual gesture for a ghost—staring into Subaru's uncovered eye. "…I am saying that one day, you're going to wake up and realize that you defined your entire life in terms of your tragedy, and that you've lost sight of who you truly are beyond that. And you'll… try to remember why you keep hanging on, and you'll half-guess that it's because without clinging to those things that you use to define yourself, you think your life will be empty. That there will be nothing left. Tell me, what are your views on the afterlife?"

"What?"

"Do you believe you'll be reincarnated, or do you believe this is your one bid at life?"

"…I'm not quite sure."

"Think about it. If this _is_ your one bid at life, then that's it! This is your one shot; do you want to spend it in abject misery?" He took a deep breath and looked Subaru over. Erik's Japanese was heavily accented in French, but fluent. He claimed he had learned it from the droves of post-war tourists who passed the gravesite. "…you're not happy locked up in your obsession—_addiction_, if you will, whatever it is. Yes, _addiction_. Trust me; no life is worth wasting in your state. And it's something I'm afraid you won't realize until too much of it is gone. Trust me. I know well what I'm talking about."

Subaru stared back, slowly formulating a response. Since he had arrived at Christine de Chagny's gravesite earlier that day to exorcise this 'opera ghost' who had been terrorizing tourists who did not treat the gravesite with due respect, and since he had finally gained Erik's trust, the ghost had been briskly leading him around Paris, gesturing with his cane toward every worthy attraction on their way to the Garnier Opera House and talking about them at length. The past ten minutes, Subaru had been running after Erik as the ghost lead him through the waiting tourists in the lobby, stopping as Erik snickered at a Japanese tour guide who was telling her group that though a musical had popularized the concept, there was no underground lake or Phantom of the Opera. Erik had picked the lock of Box Five from the inside for Subaru's benefit and, after breaking through the new floor with the butt of his cane and a resulting, theatrical explosion, had lead Subaru down an old hatch that curved through the basin of the box, like a slide, and dropped sharply down a hollow shaft in the wall to the catacombs. People were rattling the Box Five door and yelling in French as Subaru descended after Erik, assuming he had somehow barricaded the door.

"…the reason I've taken a shine to you, Sumeragi-san, over every other exorcist that has been sent after me over countless decades, is that you remind me of myself in a lot of disturbing ways, as if that isn't bloody obvious enough already." Erik was still staring at Subaru, resting with both hands on the skull-head of his cane. "I don't mind admitting that. And I think, despite all of that, your heart is _pure_, unlike mine. It would be a shame to see you rot through our shared faults."

_"I think… people who do bad things are just very lonely."_

"…Monsieur Erik, if you don't mind me asking, how many people did you kill during your lifetime?"

"I lost count. It's not countless numbers, but it's significant."

"Why did you commit murder?"

"People were in my way. Intimidation. To maintain control of the Opera House. I got no pleasure out of murder; I was no common serial killer. I didn't care either way. It was a means to an end to maintain my lifestyle."

"How can somebody do that? I mean, all of that, not just the killing, but the notes, the… orders, the manipulation, the… scaring people—"

Erik smirked and nodded slightly, touching the brim of his Fedora with his free hand. "Once you lose your integrity, the rest is easy."

"…I see." _I'm afraid I see a lot of somebody else in you, too, Erik-san…_

"Why do you ask?" Erik watched Subaru for a moment, inclining his chin back slightly, and made a small noise of realization. "Ahh. The 'illusionist' that hurt you. Don't start like that—" Subaru unclenched his fist. "—I guessed a long time ago. You skirted the topic when I asked you where you had dealt with illusion-magic before. He—she—whoever, must have been a murderer as well. And, tell me, Sumeragi-san, how much of that person you see in me?"

"…enough."

"…don't want to talk about it? Fine. I won't prod. I get enough information without you answering questions, anyway."

Subaru kept his expression smooth, though he fought the urge to punch Erik. The problem with ghosts like Erik was that they _knew_ that they were brilliant, and they were not shy about rubbing it in Subaru's face. It had happened many times before; multiple ghosts had, after decades of boredom, made a field day out of psychologically dissecting Subaru before being sent to the afterlife, and they were eager to share their results so Subaru could be awed by their profound insight. Even those who actually _cared_ about Subaru and wanted to help him were irritating because they were often uncomfortably close to the truth on the most taboo and painful of topics.

"I just have a few questions," said Subaru.

"What is it? Come on; follow." Erik pivoted, his cape fluttering around his ankles, and strode down the dark corridor. Subaru followed at a brisk walk, feeling rats scurry along the edges of the hall at his approach. "I can talk and walk at the same time."

"Why do you use illusions?"

"…hm. I assume you mean 'Why do people like _me_ and the person-who-hurt-you, deranged homicidal maniacs, probably quite solitary, use illusions?' Hm. I guess…" Erik thought for a moment. "…I guess the only thing I've noticed in common with all illusionists is that they're all profoundly lonely deep down. Question is which they were first: lonely or illusionists."

Subaru looked up and stared at the back of Erik's head. Erik was striding ahead weightlessly, dodging bad steps and catches and shining his light on them so Subaru could step over.

"An illusionist..." said Erik. "I assume he's—she's manipulative."

"…extremely. He." _And it would be really nice if we could turn the focus back to you._

"Really? I thought it was a girl who broke your heart. Best friend?"

"No."

"Brother? Father? Family?"

"No."

"…I hope you don't mind me asking, but it seems popular nowadays. Are you, um, how do you say… liking men? Homosexual?"

"Yes."

"Really." Erik looked over his shoulder and looked Subaru up and down. "You seem… what's a word… _whipped_ enough, but aside from that, you seem too _normal_. Forgiving my bluntness."

"Forgiven." _And how many homosexuals have you been able to identify in isolation, anyway? Only those who are obvious._

Subaru noticed that fog was starting to unfurl around his ankles, drifting from a source around corner behind which Erik had just disappeared.

"Ah, here we are. The gondola."

Subaru turned the final corner and stopped at the shore-break of a brackish, mist-shrouded lake, barely illuminated by the head of Erik's cane. Erik was motioning a dilapidated gondola toward the shore until it nosed into the gravely break, cutting a black swath through the fine, gauzy fog.

"_Sir_, if you would please step inside. I can't believe this is still here after the excavation. It's probably the last of my personal effects left in this opera house. Everything else was auctioned off. Don't worry." Erik stepped over the boat and pounded the hull with the butt of his cane. "It's stable. The hull is steel, and _yes_, this is a solid cane. It qualifies."

Subaru gingerly stepped into the wooden gondola and sat in the prow, half-listening to Erik talk about the 1870 fire, the aftermath, the theater vaults_—He__ hasn't had a soul to truly talk to in I-don't-know-how-long. _

—_people who do bad things are just very lonely—_

—_Seishirou-san—_

The opposite shore was scraped of former belongings. There were holes bored into the wet rock where candelabras had once stood, and trinkets left in the churned dust were testimony to excavators and, if one dug deeply enough, Erik's former occupation of the space. Erik had seated himself on a rocky outcrop close to the boat while Subaru looked around respectfully, sensing the lair for any important information.

"Not much to look at now, is it?"

"Your presence is very strong here, Monsieur Erik."

"You know, for a Japanese, you've learned to… eh… work your tongue around French very smoothly."

"I spent my childhood learning spells with similar sounds."

"Ah." Erik cocked his head thoughtfully. "…listen. Can you hear the ghost of the music?"

Subaru listened for a moment. Erik tapped the rock with the side of his cane.

"The ghost of the music lives on. So much of that music was testimony to my… obsession. My coil." Erik tapped his half-mask with a gloved forefinger. Subaru fought the reciprocal urge to touch his bandaged eye, clearly remembering the run-around he had to go through to order a prosthetic eye that was perfectly blank, not painted to look like a living eye. "Look. I've carried my tragedy with me to my ghost-form; that's how much it has burned itself into my psyche."

"I noticed."

"And yet, you didn't question. You're either very polite, or very secure." Erik sighed. "And my ghost form is physically as it was in 1881, the year of that fire, but I do not expect you to know that. It's testimony to the anchor to my… other tragedy. The mundane one, in comparison, but something to which I anchored myself for similar reasons."

He stared off into the distance. Subaru walked over to the rocky outcrop and sat next to Erik.

"The woman whose gravesite you guarded, Christine de Chagny."

"Obviously. Yes. Let's not get into that. But, yes. Her." Erik waved his hand. "What you need to know about that is more… abstract. Listen. I'm not going to ask you to tell me what exactly happened to you, but from what I have seen, it has had similar effects on you. In the first place… why I have license to talk to you this way… I guess…" He thought for a moment. "…well, I grew up. I matured after the occurrences of that year, partially because one… _kind gesture_ opened my eyes to a lot of things, made me realize how off-balance… I think that's how you say… off-balance my perspective was. And it made me realize a lot. I never again took a life or committed violence. Take that down for your criminology textbook—"

—_people who do bad things are just very lonely—_

"—but, even with that knowledge, I never let go of my _tragedy_ during my earthly life. Why? Because it's so easy to realize and so hard to let go of, like anything else. Easier said than done. My childhood was so… _bad_ it would always be in my psyche, but I clung on to the _other_ things too, like a packrat, so to speak. It weighed me down." Erik was staring at Subaru. "_You're _weighed down. And I think you're like me."

_I think we're quite different, Erik-san. I think our tragedies are different._

"—everything in your life is defined in terms of this man and your tragedy with him, am I correct?"

"…yes."

"Might I ask his name?"

Subaru did not respond.

"…all right. I could get into gruesome psychological detail, but… I just have one question for you, Sumeragi-san. Answer me if you can." Erik leaned forward on his cane and stared at Subaru under the brim of his hat. "At what point does a man cease to be himself and starts to be defined by his tragedy? Who is Sumeragi Subaru without that tragedy?"

Subaru swallowed. The first answer to come to mind, of course, was 'nothing', but he could not bring himself to say it. He knew Erik would pounce and wring the analytical fiber out of him

"…look." Erik fished in his vest and pulled out a real, aquamarine-set ring on a chain. It looked as though it was going to fall through his translucent, gloved hand. "I wore it on me every second of my remaining life, until death. I took it with me to my ghost form, along with my mask and disfigurement. Which relics do you carry on you at every moment you refuse to discard?"

The backs of Subaru's hands tingled. "…you never got over her, did you?"

"…no. I didn't allow it." Erik turned the aquamarine ring over in his palm sadly. "That pain kept her… alive, in a sense, to me. Tied to me. Yes, 'tied' is the word. I haunted… 'followed', I believe is a close translation… _followed_ them until the day I died. I had nowhere else to go; I was expelled from the Opera House, and I was sure I was going to go my own way, but I came crawling back… The _situations, _my relative situations to the rest of humanity, such as they are, on various degrees of specifics, had worked themselves too far into my psyche. It inspired my music—I think it was a fore-curser to _Don Juan Triumphant_—it fortified my sense of self, it _became_ me. _I _could not exist without it; I would lose my _identity_. It was the meter by which I judged the substance in my life. Wretched way to waste a life, which I knew damn well at the time, but…"

"I see."

"And you're not over _him_, are you? We're the same in that sense, aren't we?"

"I'll always be the captive of the sakura."

"The what? That's… a type of flower, is it not? The peach blossom?"

"Cherry. Just like it sounds."

"Uh-_huh_. Well, by whatever that means… being a captive is one thing, but are you a captive with a sense of self that extends beyond your bonds?"

Subaru did not answer. Erik tapped his cane impatiently. "You _fool_. Can't you see what I've been trying to tell you? Heed my warning; you're heading down a dead-end path! There's always time to turn back; your life's not over yet. You're so _young_! You've got to find yourself again before it's too late! And don't blow me off as some new-age moron; I know _damn well_ what I'm talking about, and I know it applies to you. You're a good man. You deserve better than what you've given yourself."

Subaru smiled to himself. "I wonder, Monsieur Erik, if you would say words like that before you had been shown a bit of kindness."

"Hardly. I wouldn't give a care about you unless you were of use to me. I'm not proud of what I used to be. I finally realized what an ignorant, selfish _child_ I was." Erik thought for a moment. "And even if nobody but you or I or that man in this world knew, the Sandman will always know. And he's the harshest judge of how well you have healed."

"Sandman?"

"I assume you dream, Sumeragi-san. You're a magical man. Esoteric, if you will, arcane. Intuitive. You know what I mean." Subaru nodded. "There are the dreams that make you desperately want to awaken, because they make you relive your tragedy, and then there are the dreams that desperately make you want to stay asleep, because they…" Erik mouthed the Japanese words experimentally for a moment. "…give you what you can never have. The Sandman knows, and he's always watching. He gives no rest to those who cling to their tragedies. Some people just don't dream very vividly, but for those of us who have fallen into his grasp… our measure of freedom is in how well he treats us at night. So, tell me, how often do you awaken smelling the sakura?"

Subaru sighed. _I'm growing weary of this topic._ "…not as often as you'd think. Not every night."

"But often enough? Get much good sleep?"

"Monsieur Erik, what if you had been hurt out of… outright betrayal?" Erik looked at Subaru out of the corners of his eyes. _Yeah, so shut up._ "It's a different… tragedy, if somebody betrays you after lying to your face for so long, and… _takes_ someone irreplaceable, something more precious to you than your own life… it's just different than if they've been doing something to your face all along." He thought for a moment. "Like the people who always feared and scorned you; they didn't pretend to be your friends and loathe you behind your back, at least."

"I never said we were one and the same, Sumeragi-san. I never said I understood your pain. I just said we were becoming similar creatures because of it. And, by the way, as a child I was rejected by my own mother to end up a personal jester for the sultana of Persia. She was a… how would you say… 'hardcore sadist'. I _do_ know that much pain. It's not the same, but it's _malice_. I know malice." Erik arched his eyebrows. "And what you say is intriguing, I must admit."

"And I must admit that I don't appreciate being picked apart for your amusement." Subaru took a deep breath and clenched his fists. _Calm.__ Calm down._ "…sorry. I know you are just trying to help, but you are treading on dangerous ground."

"Understood." Erik narrowed his eyes and looked across the water. "…time is going. But, I can't just allow you to exorcise me without warning you of what I know all too well. I didn't mean to bring up anything unpleasant." Erik looked at Subaru. "I… eh… can't hope that you'll decide to let me stay on earth, can I?"

"I'm sorry, but no. Now that I know you still haunt the living world, I am bound to send you to the afterlife. I can make no acceptations."

"That's a shame." Erik thought for a long time and sighed. "…oh well. I've been ready to leave this godforsaken rock for a long time. I guess I won't fight you."

"I greatly appreciate it. I don't want to fight you."

"Then we're in agreement." Erik stood and dusted off his translucent cape out of habit. "…well, I assume you're only here in France for a short time, and I would like you to get some time to see Paris before you have to return to Japan. I won't hold you much longer in this dungeon. I've said my piece. Tempted though I am I can't very well repeat it all night until it sticks in your skull." His face was unreadable. "…it's something you'll just have to… _realize_ one day, I guess, before you truly _hear_ my words. And by that day, I hope to God it isn't too late for you, Sumeragi Subaru-san."

"…we can only hope."

"May I ask one more—well, two—two, yes, _two_ more favors of you before I am sent?"

"Of course."

"First, I want you to have this." Erik lifted the ring-and-chain off his neck and set it ring-first in Subaru's outstretched palm, coiling the ice-cold chain around the ring. Frost dissolved on the metal as it nestled into Subaru's living skin. "Do as you will with it, but keep it with you until you return home. Maybe my _chain_ will remind you of my words when you need them most."

"I will."

"And, second, if you ever feel the need to talk to us ghosts in _séance_, or however you say… I want to hear if the Sandman has passed merciful judgment on you. After you make your decision on what you will do now. Think of it as an update of concern."

Subaru thought of the number of times he had _ever_ done a séance to re-summon a sent ghost and nodded. _Dodged that one._ "…all right."

Erik nodded and sighed, removing his Fedora and closing his eyes for a long time with his hat held loosely in the hand clasping the top of his cane. He peeled his mask off with his free hand—Subaru was able to see that it was no ghostly manifestation, but actual bone—and threw it to his side where it skidded across the gravel on its face, then removed his wig and threw it into the lake. The face beneath the mask was smooth and whole, as _normal_ as the left side of Erik's face, and his white, ghostly eye was normal and brown. The damaged, thick skin that spanned his entire face had smoothed to that belonging to a man in his thirties—a man who took good care of his skin and stayed out of the sun—and his thin, damaged hair had blackened and thickened. Erik, as he would have appeared if he had been born 'normal', was not gorgeous, but he could be considered vaguely handsome. He opened his eyes and nodded.

"You see? I discard my restraints; you discard yours. Finally." Erik touched the right side of his face in vague wonder, feeling more the _essence_ of wholeness and health than the actual, physical representation, and smiled. "I don't quite feel like myself."

"Did you just discard your identity?"

Erik thought for a moment, still fingering his cheek. "…I really don't think I did after all."

Subaru closed his hand around the cold chain-and-ring, preparing to drop them into his coat pocket so he could perform the exorcism, and stopped. A minute essence within the ring's gemstone was nudging his palm, flickering for a split second longer than Subaru needed to get a clear, intuitive picture of the ring's meaning. He dropped the ring into the open pocket.

"You know that Madame Christine wanted you to be happy, right?"

"…I know. It wasn't the ring that first told me that." Erik smiled to himself, lost in the vestiges of a memory, and nodded to Subaru. "I only wish I could say the same of the illusionist in your life that hurt you—" Subaru closed his eyes. "—but something tells me I cannot."

"…was it really all about the identity, Monsieur Erik?"

"What?"

"Was any element of your obsession still _love_ after a while?"

Erik stopped and stared back at Subaru. He took a deep, shuddering sigh and closed his eyes.

"Of course it was. Christine was… _everything…_ but… I don't know." He opened his eyes. "…I can't warn you against falling in love with the wrong people, because there's nothing to be done about it. I can't tell you to stop loving somebody. I can only tell you why people refuse to try to let go of those losses." He paused. "You're in love with the man who betrayed you, aren't you?"

Subaru stared at Erik in silent affirmation. Erik nodded slowly.

"And it's as bad as I thought it was for you." He smiled thinly. "Don't tell me he's your _only one_, the one you're sure beyond any shadow of doubt you're destined to be with."

Subaru stared. Erik laughed humorlessly and shook his head.

"Oh, Sumeragi-san, I don't envy you your burden." He tilted his head. "Bound by hate _and_ love, by the sound of it, the deadly Gemini of attraction. You have the forces that move the heavens… how would you say… binding you to that one man. Your obsession. Love. Identity—"

"—it's time." _All right, you're done._ Erik blinked; Subaru opened his eyes and held up his interlocked hands, forefingers overlapped by middle fingers, and took a deep breath, calming his fraying nerves. Erik took a deep breath and closed his eyes, grasping his cane for support. Subaru took another deep, meditative breath, and bowed slightly. "…thank you. You really are a kind person, Monsieur." _Now, go be kind in the afterlife where I don't have to listen to you anymore._

"No, I'm not, but that's all right. It's hard to see somebody might not be so nice when they've taken favor with you." Erik bowed slightly over his cane and steeled himself. "Right. Let's see if the Angel of Music truly belongs in heaven or hell."

_"There's nobody up here with eyes as lonely as yours."_

"Heaven, with my sister," Subaru said before thinking. Erik stared.

"And, might I ask her name?"

"…Hokuto."

"_Ho-_kuto. I will send her regards. But I assume I'd best not tell her how sad you look right now, should I?"

"…I think she'd just rather hear you sing." Subaru steadied his interlocked hands. "Farewell, Monsieur Erik. God grant you peace."

"God grant _you_ peace, Sumeragi-san. God knows you need it."


	2. Confessional

"So, how was France? What did you do in Paris?"

"Work." Subaru closed the CLAMP Campus van's door and stared at Kamui, who was sitting on the opposite side of the middle row and not wearing a seatbelt. "Aren't you supposed to be in class right now?"

"Yeah, I really want to be in—" Kamui checked his watch. "—Algebra III right now. Imonoyama said I could come get you. It's nice to get away once in a while."

"For _this_?"

Subaru nodded toward the traffic-jammed chaos the international arrival terminal of Narita Airport had become, a bumper-to-bumper labyrinth of caution signs and saw horses behind which men frantically tried to fix earthquake damage. It was a living nightmare, even though most international governments had vehemently warned their citizens against going to the Tokyo area, and some governments had even restricted travel to business-and-government-only. The departures drop-off area was even _more_ of a living nightmare, especially since, reciprocally, most governments were putting anticipatory caps on Japanese immigration, and nobody wanted to be one of those unlucky stragglers stuck in Japan when the quotas were met. People were flooding out of the country every day, and the flood was getting worse. The domestic terminals were constantly packed to the seams with people trying to go anywhere-but-Tokyo, but still in Japan, and the arrivals areas were deserted in comparison.

Kamui shrugged. "It's not like I'm driving." The driver, a middle-aged man dressed as a chauffeur with the CLAMP Campus logo on his shoulder and cap, did not respond. "Besides, you got to get away from this godforsaken city to go to _Europe_; I would have killed to get to do that, even for, like, a day. I can't believe you didn't do anything but _work_, Subaru."

Subaru shrugged.

"Didn't even see the Eiffel Tower or anything? Like, the Napoleon arch thing or… _anything_?"

"I _saw_ them on my way to the Opera House." He gave Kamui a rare, genuine smile, thin though it was. Kamui grinned back in spite of himself. _You're the only person who makes me smile like this anymore, and you don't even try. _"I probably had the best guide in all of Paris, too."

"_Seriously_? Wow. Who?"

"The Opera Ghost."

"No _shit_? Like, the guy you were sent to _exorcise_? That's _awesome_!" Subaru nodded. "Why couldn't I have gone with you?"

Subaru shrugged, sighed, and settled back in the seat, enjoying the ability to stretch his legs out but desperately wishing he was alone so he could smoke; he had only smoked two cigarettes between de-planing and boarding the van. The flight had been lengthy and_ brutal_, the latter mostly because he had to go without smoking for eleven-and-a-half hours, but was made somewhat tolerable by the personal television screens fixed into the backs of the seats with which passengers could select movies and games from a limited library. Subaru had tried to sleep, failed miserably, squirmed around with his flat, net-encased airline pillow, given up, and played several rounds of trivia before finally being exhausted enough to fall into a fitful doze with his head on the tray-table in front of him. During the latter hours of the flight he frequently half-awakened to see on the screen, at the top edge of his peripheral vision, a miniature airplane posed on their current position along a filling, arced path across Eurasia from Charles du Galle to Narita, alternating with screens in French, Japanese, and English telling him their current physical stats and the time until they reached their destination.

He would be pressed to find a more mature way to describe the flight than 'It _sucked_.'

"Okay, you _have_ to tell me about this," said Kamui. Subaru opened his uncovered eye. "You were called to _France_ to exorcise… what? They had to _import_ you? What _was_ this; _Satan_? Are you _that good_?"

"…just a tricky ghost I happened to have luck with where no European exorcists had luck. They had just exhausted their pool." He smiled thinly at Kamui. "The Voice of God shouldn't be so impressed with a lowly onmyouji."

"Shut _up_."

"Sorry."

Kamui did not respond and stared out the window. Subaru adjusted his shoulders to a more comfortable position.

"So… did I miss anything?"

Kamui shook his head. Subaru was relieved to see that Kamui had sustained no new injuries since he had left. For once, the poor boy was not wrapped _somewhere_ in Ace bandage and limping around while the CLAMP Campus medical researchers tried to talk him into volunteering himself for just 'a little' research, since he seemed to heal so phenomenally quickly.

"What's under your shirt?" said Kamui.

"…oh, this." Subaru fished the ring-chain out from under his black turtleneck and lifted the necklace off his neck completely, showing Kamui the ring in his palm. He had originally felt far more comfortable carrying the necklace in his pocket, but had decided that wearing it around his neck would look less suspicious at customs, and he had forgotten he was wearing it. "…the ghost gave it to me. It was a gift." _Reminder, more like. _"Do you want it?"

"What? No; if the ghost gave it to you, he obviously wanted you to have it. Keep it."

Subaru shrugged and stretched back out, dropping the heavy necklace into his coat pocket and closing his good eye, hoping Kamui would get the hint.

* * *

"You seriously exorcised the _Phantom_ of the _Opera_? Like, the guy from the musical and _everything_?" 

"He was first exposed in a novel. He was very particular about mentioning that several times."

"…he's _real_?"

"Yes."

"_Whoa._ You went to that underground lake and everything? There's a boat, right?"

"Yes."

"…'The Sandman will be your judge'?"

"Yeah."

"That sounds like a lot of bullshit to me."

Subaru shrugged and looked up as the CLAMP Campus gates passed the van overhead, hands shoved into his pockets. Kamui was watching him.

"Seriously, I mean, it kinda makes sense, but it still sounds like this guy's dribbling at the mouth. Sounds like the lit teacher, actually."

"Has the Sandman been kind to you, Kamui?"

"…you mean, have I been having nightmares?" Subaru nodded. "Yeah. You know that, Subaru. Hell, I don't know." Kamui was quiet for a moment. "It still sounds like bullshit."

Subaru shrugged. "It made sense to me."

"You going to tell me anything else this guy—"

"—Erik—"

"—_Erikku_ said to you? You're jumping all over the place. You're not making sense."

Subaru sighed heavily and closed his eye as the van stopped alongside the Dragons of Heaven's apartment, separated from the front gate by only a tall hedge-growth. He knew Kamui was staring at him, awaiting an answer. He opened his eye as the driver opened the passenger-side door and pulled his backpack out of the van from beside Subaru, then stepped aside so Subaru could pass.

"Welcome back, Sumeragi-san. Shirou-san."

"Subaru, do you want to go get something to eat or something?"

Subaru stepped out of the van and took his backpack from the driver with a bow. Kamui was climbing out of the van and repeating his question as Subaru adjusted the bag across his back, fingering the ring in his pocket half-consciously. The van drove off.

"Subaru, are you listening?"

"No. I mean, yes. I'm listening." Subaru looked up at Kamui. "Kamui, you should go back to class."

"Oh, _come on_—"

"Well, I mean, you don't have to go to _class_, but I need some time alone right now." Subaru sighed and pulled his box of Mild Sevens out of his coat pocket and fished around for a lighter, avoiding eye contact. "Sorry. Maybe some other time."

* * *

_This is ridiculous. This is ridiculous. This is ridiculous. This is ridiculous—_

Subaru stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, a lean figure with a bandaged eye wearing only a black turtleneck and black pants. He had discarded his cream-colored coat and draped it across the countertop, and had been staring at his reflection for a long time, waiting for… _something_. He wasn't quite sure what yet.

_"At what point does a man cease to be himself and starts to be defined by his tragedy? Who is Sumeragi Subaru without that tragedy?"_

_So, who was I _last_ before my tragedy? Is that the _real _Sumeragi Subaru?_

_Come on. This is ridiculous. You know you can never go back to what you were. You are what your experiences have made you. Stop it. Go write up your report._

Subaru gathered his coat over his arm and strode out of the bathroom, only to stop in the doorway for a long moment. The clock on the bathroom wall ticked softly, methodically. He shifted his weight, shifting the coat from one arm to the other. He felt the ring shift and drop further into the spacious pocket.

He walked back to the mirror and laid the coat out across the counter once again, then braced himself on his palms and _stared_.

_…gloves, a hat, cut the sleeves off this shirt, and grow my hair back out into that ridiculous bob-cut. I'd look my old self again, wouldn't I?_ Subaru furrowed his eyebrows. It felt curiously warm and intimate to analyze his past self, but he felt as though he was speaking to a close underling, somebody to whom he related but was far more mature than. _I've gotten quite a bit taller, and I'm quite a bit more masculine now, but…_

_This is ridiculous. I can't dress myself up and transform back into my former self. It will never work. Now, go do your report._

Subaru started toward the door without even lifting his palms, stopped, and twisted forward again. He stared.

_Pretend there's no Seishirou. Sakurazuka Seishirou never existed. _

Subaru stared for a long time, placing himself in that world. At first, he defined the world in terms of being _without _Seishirou, but then he defined the world as being merely very _pure_, in a sense, having a void in that association. He straightened, breathing regularly to keep his heart from fluttering even slightly. The effects pseudo-liberation were having on his body were odd; he seemed lighter, almost transcendent, and his joints seemed almost numb. He shook out his shoulders experimentally and took a deep breath.

_…here we go. Do it._

Slowly, Subaru reached up to his right temple, where the white bandage around his forehead was pinned. Though Subaru's eye had healed enough to be replaced by prosthesis, Subaru insisted on bandaging the blank eye until he felt the time was right to uncover it. He fingered the metal bracket-pins carefully, feeling the rough texture and folded layers of the bandage and flicking the edges of the wraps with his fingertip. He ran his forefinger down the length of the bandage, strumming the edges of the wrap like a rasp_—like one of those rigged fish people rasp with a stick—_trying to work himself up to the unveiling with foreplay. He pressed his fingertip against one of the brackets and pushed it up to dislodge one set of opposing teeth, holding it in place and taking a deep breath through his teeth. _My heart should not be going like this. This is ridiculous—no go with it go with it don't stop don't think keep going—_

Slowly, edging one end out before the other, Subaru undid the three clasps on his bandage and set them on the counter in a line. He slowly nudged the tucked edge of the bandage out until he was able to catch the free end, holding it securely against his temple. He took a deep, shuddering sigh, and licked his lips. _Erik, peeling his mask off, Erik tapping his mask knowingly as Subaru felt himself touch his own eye not actually touching it—_

_Do it. All at once._

Heart pounding, Subaru loosened the bandage and pulled it off his head, still loosely wrapped in a circle when he set it on the counter. He opened his eye and stared at the mismatched reflection. _An off-focus gaze of green-and-white, green eye looking off to the left off-center the same, eerie off-focus as—_

For the first time, Subaru found himself wishing he had ordered a prosthesis that looked like his living, green eye. He closed his right eye, trying to pass his squint off as a vigorous wink, and slowly smiled. The smile was awkward and forced, thin. He forced himself to grin_—damn I look like a car salesman—_and started laughing at his reflection.

For a moment, Subaru thought he was sixteen. An overgrown, broad-shouldered sixteen with long sleeves, a short haircut, and bare hands, but still sixteen.

_"Did you just discard your identity?"_

Subaru's laughter died with his grin, and he slowly opened his right eye.

_…I don't think I did after all._

Subaru felt as though he was eighteen, perhaps nineteen, as he sighed heavily and pulled his cream coat back on, feeling the weight of Erik's ring-necklace drop in the right pocket. He stared at the discarded bandages loosely looped on the counter around the three clasps for a few moments, and then nudged them further up the counter and walked out, turning the lights off behind him.

He carried himself with his back and shoulders straighter than usual.

* * *

The Catholic Church Kasumi Karen was known to frequent was empty save for an elderly lady in the front row with her shawled head bowed, wrapping rosary beads around her wrinkled hands and feverously praying, and a priest vacuuming the center carpet with a surprisingly silent vacuum. Subaru was able to see the entire church from the foyer as he removed his combat boots and exchanged them for slippers in a cubby: rows of oak benches flanked by confessionals, parallel isles vectoring the visitor's attention to the podium flanked by choral risers and an organ. An off-white tarp was duct-taped to the jagged, half-glass-shadowed portal in which the church's only stained glass window had once resided, testimony to the recent earthquakes in the area. 

_They're going to get worse. How much longer will this building be habitable? _He looked at the elderly woman. _…why aren't more people in here praying? Where is your family?_

For a moment, Subaru remembered an elderly man he had once befriended during The Year; the man had died alone and unappreciated, even after years of quiet goodwill in the face of cruelty and abuse at the hands of his daughter's family. He looked the woman over. She looked feeble, probably nearly unable to walk, and was probably regarded as a drag. _So, are you here praying for a family that ignores you?_ _Or did they leave you here in Tokyo? Everybody really is leaving this forsaken city. Everybody with money and means…_

_Calm down. It's just as likely that she just walked down the street to visit the church, and that she's fine._

Subaru sighed heavily and sat in the back row, stretching his legs out under the row in front, tilting his head back, and closing his eyes. The vacuum was drawing away from him, further up the isle, and he could barely hear the elderly woman mumbling from the front of the church over the drone. He did not know why exactly he had wandered into the church—maybe to talk to Karen; she was one of the few people on earth who made Subaru feel mellow and at rest for a few precious moments—but now that he was there, he felt like staying for_—oh, maybe twenty minutes, half an hour—_even if whatever he was looking for was not there.

After about ten minutes of rest, Subaru sighed heavily and stood, orienting himself toward the exit. He stared at the church's vaulted ceiling, stopping himself from grabbing his cigarette pack while still in the building. _…do I really want to leave yet? It's so… peaceful in here…_

Subaru stopped and realized he had haphazardly been wandering toward the left-flank confessionals, looked up at the ornate door, shrugged, and stepped into the booth, closing the door behind him. _Sure, why not? It's dark and quiet in here. _

Subaru sat down and sighed again, burying his head in his hands and resting his crown against the latched door. The booth was pitch-dark and smelled of mahogany, incense, and dusty upholstery. There was no need to flick on the electric light fixed into the ceiling. It was far more peaceful in the dark.

The vacuum, now a distant hum, switched off and wound down. The woman's voice was inaudible even in the silence. Subaru heard somebody walk up the isle as the front door opened and closed, reverberating through the cold masonry against Subaru's back. Then, utter silence; Subaru assumed the woman had left. He sighed and re-adjusted his position, resting his forehead on his folded arms, crown still against the door.

A few long minutes passed. Somebody opened the priest's door and stepped into the other side of the confessional, sliding open the cover across the heavy grille. Oddly, the priest did not turn on his own light; Subaru assumed many people gave confessions in the dark. They felt more hidden and safe away from the scrutiny of bright lights.

Subaru half-waited, still in a daze, for the priest to speak, but he did not. He lifted his head off his arms and squinted through the grille suspiciously, to no avail; _of course, that damn thing's there to keep you from seeing._ He tapped on the screen.

"Are you all right in there?"

No response. Subaru cleared his throat.

"Um. Well. In case you're wondering, I don't know why I'm here. I have no confessions for you. Thank you for providing the hospitality of your church."

No response. Subaru stood and stretched out his back, then reached for the door—

"Are you sure you have nothing to confess?"

Subaru's hand snapped back and he slammed back down into the seat, back rigid, listening to the ensuing silence. His nerves were humming. _Stupid! Stupid, why weren't you paying attention!_ Seething, he clenched and re-clenched his fists, forcing himself to calm down. He swallowed and took a deep breath.

"…well, _Father_," he said quietly, "I can't really think of anything right now."

The man through the grille laughed softly. "…I'm pretty far from a Father, my _son_."

"Oh, _really_. Then, what are you?"

"The Sandman."

Subaru punched through the grille and a familiar large, long-fingered hand snatched his wrist and slammed his fist backward against the wall under his side of the grille. He gasped sharply; his wrist and shoulder were being bent at a hideous angle, close to snapping, and his arm had grated along the jagged edges of the smashed grille, halted by his coat sleeve, and was now being pulled down into the wreckage. Blood dripped down the grille wood as his arm was pulled down, spreading slowly through the torn white fabric. Subaru struggled and pulled away from the grip fitfully in short bursts, still blinded by anger and whining, before the wave subsided and he relaxed his tortured shoulder. He was sure the joint was going to snap from its lock.

Seishirou clicked his tongue. "You need to learn to watch your temper, Subaru-kun."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"That language is a bit strong for the House of God." Seishirou looked through the broken grille over Subaru's arm, a familiar, mismatched, smug gaze. Subaru pulled away on faint reflex, caught against the tension in his shoulder, and awkwardly relaxed against the confessional wall, staring back with his cheek on the jagged wood. "I see you've done away with the bandage. Interesting model of eye you chose. It's very refined."

"What do you want?" Subaru's mouth was dry, but he refused to collect saliva and smack his tongue lest Seishirou notice. His shoulder was in hell.

"Is it so wrong that I choose to check up on you after your European sojourn? How was Paris, anyway? I've heard it's lovely this time of year."

"It was lovely."

"Really? I hope you didn't burry yourself with work the entire time you were there. Did you have a good time?"

"What do you want, Seishirou-san?"

The honorific felt ghostly on Subaru's tongue. He blinked, focusing through the strain his one eye was giving him at close-range. _–jagged frame, black hair meld black shadow amber eye white eye Seishirou what's so funny—_

Seishirou arched his eyebrows. "…relax. I don't want anything from you, Subaru-kun."

"Then let me go."

"So long as you understand that I am not here to fight you."

Subaru stared at Seishirou for a long time, searching for flickers of dishonesty, any flicker of amusement or veiled sarcasm, and, upon seeing only the usual false benevolence, nodded once. Seishirou released Subaru's wrist; Subaru's shoulder loosened suddenly, heavenly, and Subaru pulled his bleeding arm out of the shattered wreckage and cradled it against his chest. Red slowly bloomed across the white fabric.

"…didn't care to break it this time?" Subaru glared through the grille, simmering with pools of deep, tidal hatred, deceptively glassy on the surface. "Or is one break enough per cup?"

"I see they're teaching you well in that remedial rhetoric at CLAMP Campus. How is night school going, anyway? Almost got a diploma?"

"Almost."

"I see."

The pool undulated in Subaru's core. Subaru stared back, nerves humming, waiting for Seishirou to elaborate. After a few long moments during which Seishirou looked down and Subaru heard cellophane rustle and a lighter click, Seishirou exhaled smoke and sighed.

"Aaaaah." Seishirou looked at Subaru, whose spinal nerves were fraying. "Let's go outside. I don't think I'm very welcome in here anyway."


	3. Never Go Home

_I remember a time when it was he who kept saying "I love you", over and over again, so many times a day. I can't even imagine that now. It doesn't feel as though any of this should have happened. The change is staggering. Back then, I could never, in a million years, believe things would be as they are right now._

_But you can't look back. You can never go back. You can never undo the present to regain the past. _

_You can never go home. That innocence, that feeling, is forever lost._

_And the Sandman knows._

_

* * *

_  
Subaru was shocked to discover that both the priest and the old lady were alive when they exited the confessional, that the church was void of the essence of the sakura, and that the priest—who was still vacuuming and did not notice Seishirou's cigarette—had not heard the grille break. Now he and Seishirou stood behind the church in the violet-clouded dusk, Subaru pressing on his arm through his coat to stop the bleeding and their slippers exchanged for their outdoor shoes, staring at one another properly for the first time since exiting the confessional. Seishirou had a half-amused, half-preoccupied smirk, watching Subaru with his cigarette dangling loosely by his side, smoke curling and dissipating around his hand. He had put on his sunglasses at some point after exiting the confessional, which was just as well, since Subaru knew if he could see Seishirou's eyes the ice behind which he had obscured the full, confusing well of his emotions would shed; so long as Seishirou was wearing those damn glasses, Subaru found it easier to focus controlled, simmering anger.

Seishirou was consistent, if nothing else. Every time they met he seemed unaffected, guiltless and free as he had been for eight years, an alien satellite content in his anonymity. He was wearing the same enveloping, black trenchcoat and black suit he had worn since Subaru had known him for who he truly was—aside from the colorless attire and an additional, sadistic edge, shorter, straighter hair and no eyeglasses, there was no difference between the man standing before Subaru now and the flirtatious, corny veterinarian Subaru had run into in a subway eight years ago. Subaru loathed the consistency. The lack of lines made trying to chart Seishirou's true nature and intentions all that much more impossible, working on the same principle that the best liars are such because they truly believe their own lies.

_Does he see me as any different than I was nine years ago? Who am I—who have I always been to him; what part of me makes me still me? What part of me has he always seen as defining 'Sumeragi Subaru', that part of me that makes me 'me' no matter how much else changes? _

_Does the man who never changes know the meaning of 'identity'?_

"—_we are what our experiences have made us—"_

"…and we can never go back," Subaru mumbled, watching Seishirou, who was taking a drag of his cigarette. Smoke plumed and curled around his face.

"What?" He exhaled smoke when he spoke.

"Why did you call yourself the Sandman?" _You can't have been at the Opera House; I would have sensed you in an instant—can't have been in Paris, I would have known—but he eluded you in the confessional snuck in you said "Are you all right?"—_

Seishirou smiled cryptically and edged a cigarette out of its nearly-full box with his thumb, then offered its end to Subaru. Subaru pulled the cigarette out and fished in his pockets for a lighter, sifting past Erik's bunched necklace and half-disappointed when he actually found one, and held the cigarette between his teeth, lighting with one hand and shielding the flame with the other. Rain was coming; the underside of the leaden sky was dark indigo, and the wind carried the scent.

"How have you been doing, Subaru-kun?"

Subaru took a long drag of his cigarette, exhaled, and watched the smoke dissipate in wispy clouds. "…as well as could be expected." _Answer the question, Seishirou-san. I don't want to dance around this all afternoon._

Seishirou made a small noise of amusement. "That's good. I'm glad to hear that."

They stared at one another and smoked for a long time, Subaru uneasily, angrily, and trying to collect his thoughts, clutching his bleeding arm, Seishirou amusedly with his head cocked, thinking. Seishirou had long since smoked his cigarette to its filter and had seated himself on a low wall jutting out from the church, sweeping his coat under him and stretching his long legs, tapping his toe to some mental beat. He leaned back on his arms and inhaled the stormy air.

"Ahhhh. Lovely weather we're getting this time of year, wouldn't you say?"

"Have you always been so brutal, Seishirou-san?"

"Hm?" Seishirou said to the sky.

"When did you…" Subaru paused, collecting his thoughts. "…become like you are? Unable to feel. Did… something happen to you somewhere along the way to make you the way that you are?"

Seishirou sat up. "Something been on your mind lately, Subaru-kun?"

"Why won't you answer anything today?"

"You're adorable, you know, Subaru-kun."

"Seishirou-san…"

"Yes, I've been this way as long as I can remember. Why do you ask all of a sudden?"

"You're sure nothing happened… I don't know, in your childhood? As a teenager? Something you don't remember?"

Even as he said it, Subaru knew how ridiculous it sounded. Seishirou started laughing.

"Well, Subaru-kun, as soon as I _remember_ something I don't remember, I'll be sure to tell you."

_What's the point? He'd lie anyway unless it made him look good._

"Why?" said Seishirou. "Are you trying to find 'some real me' somewhere beneath the surface of that big, bad Thing that made poor Seishirou-san so cold and heartless? Is that is, Subaru-kun? You're not going to find him. He doesn't exist."

"He's not…"

Subaru paused, hoping Seishirou had not heard what he blurted. Seishirou was waiting patiently, leaning forward on his arms.

"…he's not the veterinarian you knew nine years ago, Subaru-kun." Seishirou smiled. "But it's cute that you think that could possibly be how I actually _feel_. I'd think you'd know better by now, after what I've done to you."

"And you still don't feel a thing?"

Seishirou was still smiling. "Not a thing, Subaru-kun."

Subaru seethed and clenched his fists, fighting the urge to whack Seishirou across the jaw with the back of his fist. A white-hot, sick monster was uncoiling in his stomach, churning and making him taste metal in his saliva. Seishirou cocked his head.

"Something wrong?"

"It's unbelievable—" Subaru took a deep breath to collect his words and organize them. The monster lurched sickeningly."—you can't even begin to _fathom_ the hell you've put me through, the nights and days and weeks and nights of agony, from the moment you told me you'd been the one who had killed that girl in the tree—when you took Nee-san—you bastard, you completely wrecked my life, and you don't even know what that means—" The words were coming out in a whispered rush now, things Subaru had said before, in various forms, in varying degrees of hysteria and rage, things that always ended up being regarded with the same amused scorn. "—you don't know—that you've completely and utterly changed me beyond recognition; I don't even remember what it's like to be in my old skin anymore, not since you broke my heart. I don't remember happiness, or content, or belief in good things in life. Everything is consumed by you." Subaru choked back a whispered sob, still standing up straight and trying to stare through Seishirou's sunglasses. "_Everything…_ in this entire life that could hold even some small degree of desire for me is consumed by you. And yet, you haven't changed at all. You haven't changed at all—you haven't changed at all—I haven't been a force to change you at all, and you've wrecked my identity, rearranged it, made it something completely new—"

"Shhhh."

"Take off your glasses."

Seishirou stared for a moment before removing his sunglasses, folding them and putting them in his coat pocket. Subaru took a deep, shuddering breath, staring straight into Seishirou's mismatched eyes, one living and aware, the other a dead, resin orb. If Subaru did not know Seishirou better, he would say that Seishirou was concerned; but, he knew the closest Seishirou could come to that emotion was pity, and the idea made the monster in Subaru's stomach tear sickeningly at its cage.

"Subaru-kun, didn't your grandmother teach you to ask nicely for things?"

"Would you, for _once in your life_, listen to me? I'm trying to say something!"

"Nothing that is news to me, Subaru-kun."

"How can you just _sit there_ like that and say things like that to a—a guy you—you—"

Subaru's speech was disintegrating into whispered, barely-controlled sobs. He clenched his fists defensively as Seishirou stood and walked over to him, slowly, seeming to savor Subaru's internal conflict as he drew closer.

"You—you—" Subaru took a deep breath and turned his back on Seishirou in a panic, straightening his spine. His train of thought had long since derailed and crashed. "—a guy that you—"

"Shhhh."

Seishirou wrapped his arms around Subaru and pulled him back into his chest, resting his lips on the crown of Subaru's head. Subaru closed his eyes and shuddered, all coherent thought halted. They must have made an ethereal picture at that moment, Subaru thought: framed by the darkening clouds and distant lightning to one flank, and a break in the clouds brilliantly splashed with sunset pinks and oranges to the other. The cool wind stirred Subaru's bangs and brushed his face. Seishirou was warm and enveloping against his back, his silk-lined coat lapping around Subaru's sides with the white edges of Subaru's own, lighter coat. He smelled like cigarettes and cologne, oddly, not so much like blood and sakura as one would think.

"_Hey, Su-ba-ru!"_ _Hokuto leaned back in her seat at the kitchen counter, looking up from a ladies' journal. Her huge, butterfly-banded top hat fell over her eyes; she pushed it back up. "Did you know that anger and the sex drive are pretty much the same primal emotion?"_

"…_WHAT?"_

"_You heard me! You just need to get Sei-chan good and _mad _at you! Too bad he's so mellow…"_

"_Nee-san, _what _are you _reading…"

—_that's been the story of my life for the past nine years, Nee-san—_

"You don't eat enough, Subaru-kun." Subaru shuddered; Seishirou was stroking his flank with the thumb of one hand and tracing the back of Subaru's hand with the other's fingertips. "You're so thin."

"…I wonder why that is."

Seishirou laughed silently and pulled Subaru more possessively into his tall frame. "I wonder."

Subaru closed his eyes and took a shuddering gasp. The conflict was becoming unbearable; his entire world was holding him at the moment, a sensation so rare and all-consuming that he coveted it, nourished on one instance for months; he replayed it in his mind with his comforter pulled around his body, curled on his side, pretending the heavy blanket was Seishirou's enveloping weight holding him, pulling him against his chest as Seishirou was now. Sometimes Subaru pressed the comforter to his mouth and kissed it: long kisses, then several fevered pecks, nuzzling it and kissing it softly, lovingly, pretending the heavy fabric was various planes of Seishirou's anatomy. But _this_ was the real instance. Subaru always wanted to run away, to wander around to draw out the length of the experience, pacing to collect his thoughts and his sanity, and come back, like an artist breaking away from his work during a heightened frenzy to pace around the studio, gesturing out his idea. His heart was pounding as it never could do with mere imagination; he knew he was not nearly as steady as he thought he was.

He knew it would end the way it always did: he standing alone, his back and cheeks equally exposed to the cool wind, the possessive warmth, heartbeat, familiar cologne, and fingertips on the backs of his hands gone. And then, Subaru became aware of the rest of the world again; the city moved around him, millions of citizens buried in their own lives, separated from him by the cool wind. Sometimes Seishirou stayed for hours, and sometimes for minutes; sometimes they kissed, sometimes they fooled around against walls half-antagonistically, Seishirou pinning Subaru with his large frame and torturing him with rough treatment, but they had never gotten all the way to a bedroom...

"Do you honestly think if you'll kiss me, I'll never again commit an act of violence?" said Seishirou. Subaru stood up straight in shock. "Is that idea somewhere in your criminology textbook?"

"…how did you get into the Opera House undetected?" Subaru whispered. Seishirou nuzzled the side of his neck with his lips; Subaru's stomach dropped out. The white-hot monster lurched eagerly.

"Poor Subaru-kun. Poor, innocent Subaru-kun." Seishirou sucked the crook of Subaru's neck. Subaru shuddered. "Of course you won't change me. You don't mean enough to me to change the geometry of my identity at all, no matter how much love you show me." He raised his head, dragging the tip of his nose along Subaru's neck, and whispered in Subaru's ear. "I'd step on your corpse and move on. Do you know why, Subaru-kun?"

Subaru closed his eyes, squeezing tears down his cheeks.

"Because, in the end, you've meant nothing to me after all," said Seishirou. "And you mean nothing to my identity. There is nothing in me that is anything in you."

Subaru sobbed and bit his fist, shaking his head weakly. The monster was burrowing a hole through his stomach. Seishirou made soothing noises and rubbed Subaru's shoulders. Subaru could _feel _Seishirou's smile; he was torn between wanting to rip Seishirou's face off and wanting to turn and fall to his knees to beg for—something, any sort of mercy, for Seishirou to say he was lying—holding himself up with Seishirou's coat. _My GOD, don't you see what you're DOING to me? This is emotional agony, Seishirou-san, emotional hell—but you know you don't know what emotional means you must know deep down but how could you—_

"…then…" Subaru said haltingly. "…prove it."

"Hmm?"

"Somebody once told me that when you kiss somebody with your heart behind it, a piece of each person is exchanged forever." Subaru fought to keep his voice leaden and steady. "You can never get that piece of your soul back, and you can never rid your own soul of the other person's essence. Even if you don't notice it, it's always there, that piece of them… that piece of you in them."

"Is that so…? And I assume the further you go with somebody, the more you… what was it, exchange soul pieces?"

Subaru narrowed his eyes. He knew what tone was coming. "Yes."

"Really." Seishirou thought for a moment, stroking Subaru's sides. "…it sounds like complete metaphysical bullshit to me, _idealized_, innocent, immature nonsense you took from a fourteen-year-old girl and desperately want to believe. Let there be no illusions between us, Subaru-kun."

"And you know so much about existing without illusions."

"I'm the dealer, not the addict, Subaru-kun."

"You're a liar."

"Not at the moment."

"You're so wrapped up in your own illusions that you've lost all perspective and touch with reality." Seishirou snorted in amusement; Subaru growled quietly. "You think this is _cool_ and _tough_, Seishirou-san? I think you're a coward. A childish, immature coward with... without the courage to face the hell emotions can put us through like everybody else in the world. Because that would make you vulnerable. That would make you common—_what is so funny_?"

Seishirou stopped laughing and kissed the top of Subaru's head. "You're cute, Subaru-kun. You know that, right?"

"_What is so funny_?"

"You, Subaru-kun. You and the immature, half-baked theories you keep throwing at me because you're so desperate to believe them. Because you're too weak to face reality unless you've got a shield of false hope around your angst. Let me tell you something, Subaru-kun." Seishirou held Subaru more tightly, whispering. "I made a bet with you out of curiosity, because I _wanted_ to feel, was _curious_ to find that sensation. I was ready to embrace it with open arms and courage, ready to be another of the billions of feeling people in this world. I would accept all of that about myself in an instant if it were true."

"But—maybe something made you—"

"An emotionless sociopath? _Made_ or _not_, Subaru-kun, that is what I am now. And you can't turn that back. You can run around in circles looking for what made people the way they are, looking for a 'true' version of themselves you desperately want to bring out, as if you can shed people of the events in their lives that make them who they are. But we are just as much nurture as nature, Subaru-kun, and the events that shape the course of our lives are just as much a part of our core identity as the nature with which we are born."

Subaru was silent for a moment. "…I think, Seishirou-san, the source is worth something… even if it's not much. It's always there as much as anything else."

"You're cute, Subaru-kun. Cute."

Subaru seethed quietly and leaned back into Seishirou, closing his eyes and organizing words for what he desperately wanted to get across. Seishirou was ghosting his fingertips across Subaru's hands. Seishirou was particularly infuriating when he was convinced that he was right; there was zero point in trying to convince him further.

Verbally.

—_NO. You're out of your mind, Subaru. Stop it. It's just an excuse for you to—it might work. Just because it's an excuse doesn't mean other good may come out of it. It's really the only reason I'd—liar, Subaru, you know it's hopeless, an exercise—_

"What are you thinking, Subaru-kun?"

"I'm thinking of going back to your apartment with you."

Subaru said the words before he realized who had said them. He cursed and seized up as Seishirou froze for a moment, catching himself, and laughed quietly.

It was a split-second, illusive waver, like a flicker beneath water, but Seishirou seemed almost nervous.

"That's incredibly forward of you, Subaru-kun. What are you implying we do at my apartment?"

"Don't play dumb, Seishirou-san. What else would… we do?"

"I honestly don't know. Talk like old friends? Eat? Smoke?"

Subaru sighed. _I absolutely cannot believe I am doing this. This is going to be a disaster. _

_No turning back. He already knows what you want. Best way to redeem yourself is to be forward._

"We would sleep together."

"Huh. That's it?" Seishirou released Subaru and turned him lightly, pushing him back to get a better look at him in mock surprise. "Well, if you needed a place to crash, you could have said something earlier. My couch is always open—"

"You know _goddamned well_ what I mean, Seishirou-san."

"I'm afraid I don't."

"I want to _sleep with you_. In the sense where there's no sleeping going on."

"Oh, like a slumber party? I could rent movies—"

"SEISHIROU—"

"Look, Subaru-kun." Seishirou tapped Subaru's nose. Subaru fought the urge to snap his finger off. The monster was scrabbling and boiling. "We're both adult men now. If you want to have sex with me, you could come right out and say that. If you're not comfortable enough even saying the word, or asking me directly, you're certainly not ready to actually perform the act. Tell me, are you a virgin, Subaru-kun?"

"You _know_ I'm a—it's just a vulgar word and I don't like the sound of it."

"Sex _is_ vulgar. It's _incredibly_ vulgar. It's awkward and messy and vulgar and disgusting." Subaru winced. "If you're not comfortable with that concept, you might as well drop this idea right now, Subaru-kun."

"…how can you treat this so lightly?"

"Because unlike you, I'm not investing in exchanging _souls_ with somebody or some other such nonsense. It's just a physical act."

"…you _bastard_."

The monster wanted blood. Subaru took a deep breath and stared Seishirou down, clenching his fists and fighting to keep his calm. –_did you know that anger—_

"…all right," Subaru said quietly. "I'll make a bet with you."

"Hmm." Seishirou smiled. "Sounds interesting. What is it?"

"You—we'll—_sleep together—_"

"_That _doesn't sound promising—"

"—have _sex_, fuck, screw around, _whatever_—" Subaru swallowed, drawing blood in the palms of his hands with his nails. "—and you'll go into it with a completely open heart and mind. And I'll do my best to change you. If you really _do_ have nothing to fear, you have nothing to block from me, Seishirou-san."

Seishirou stared at Subaru, thinking. Subaru's fists were shaking with the effort of keeping them at his sides. He stared back at Seishirou, trying to read what the other man was thinking. The wheels were definitely turning upstairs, but to what end, and by what process, Subaru had no idea.

Subaru had yet to figure out what made Seishirou tick at all.

_And I'm _sleeping _with this guy? This is suicide—do you think you'll figure him out by this, Subaru? This is madness—_

"…and if I win?" said Seishirou.

"What?"

"A bet has to have conditions, Subaru-kun. What will you do if I win?"

"…I don't know." Subaru took a deep breath. "What would you want?"

"Hmm." Seishirou thought for a moment. "…this really is an unfair bet, Subaru-kun. You're re-fighting a battle you already lost. Miserably."

"You didn't answer my question."

"I won't take a condition. But… let's say that if you win—and I'll be honest—I will uphold my original promise to you if you win any bets between us. How does that sound?"

—_but we can never go back to the way it would have been if I had won nine years ago, Seishirou-san. Never—_

"…deal."

Seishirou nodded, thought for a moment, and reached for one of Subaru's fists. Subaru drew away defensively and glared; Seishirou smiled.

"You're going to have to trust me to get a _lot_ closer to you than that if you want to do this."

Subaru watched him for a moment and reluctantly gave Seishirou his fist. Seishirou uncurled Subaru's bloody fingers and ran the tip of his own finger across the scours from Subaru's fingernails. Subaru hissed.

"There's a lot of bacteria under your nails, Subaru-kun. You really shouldn't do this. You'll get an infection."

Subaru was silent. Seishirou stroked at the bloody hand for a moment, seemingly transfixed by the vibrant red drying on Subaru's palm, and a slight grin marred his smile, revealing his canine teeth. Like Subaru, he had startlingly white teeth for a chain-smoker.

Seishirou started licking the wound.

Subaru jerked back in shock, jarring against his sore shoulder. Seishirou was lapping heavily with the full length of his tongue in long strokes, drawing saliva onto his tongue to liquefy the blood. Subaru half-expected his tongue to feel hot, but it was only lukewarm: wet, powerful, and textured. He shuddered and rested his hand on the back of Seishirou's head, gripping his thick hair, half-wondering why the hell Seishirou was doing this.

…_he's doing this just to freak me out. Bastard._

"So…" Subaru caught his breath. "…you've gotten into vampirism now?"

Seishirou chuckled and drew Subaru's loose hand further toward his mouth, and started licking and sucking lightly on Subaru's fingertips. Subaru gasped sharply and locked his knees to stay upright, the blood rushing out of his limbs. For a moment, he almost blacked out. Seishirou felt the tug against the fingers and gripped Subaru's wrist more tightly, pulling him upright and drawing Subaru closer with a strong hand on the small of his back. Subaru was fighting to control his breathing; Seishirou seemed to find this amusing, and slid Subaru's forefinger further into his mouth, grating through his teeth, up to the first joint.

Subaru stood up straight, glaring. He was pulled close enough to Seishirou that the front of his sweater brushed Seishirou's suit jacket, and Seishirou was maintaining an iron hand on his back, not allowing Subaru to back away, pulling him closer to his heat. Every time Subaru wavered a millimeter closer, Seishirou's hand followed, and that new distance became the new allowed minimum. If Subaru stared straight ahead, he saw Seishirou's necktie; if he looked up, he saw the underside of Seishirou's jaw and the heel of his own palm, finger between Seishirou's teeth.

"Seishirou-san…"

Seishirou released Subaru's finger and caught Subaru's hand with his own, kissing the back, interlacing their fingers, and dropping their hands to their sides, pressing his skin into Subaru's open wound. He drew Subaru even closer and stared at him.

Subaru swallowed and steeled himself.

"What?"

"You're so tense, Subaru-kun." Seishirou stroked the small of Subaru's back with his restraining hand. Subaru shuddered involuntarily. Seishirou seemed half-perplexed, half-amused about something. "…you've got to loosen up if you want to have any fun."

"_Fun_?"

"First…" Seishirou brought their interlocked hands up, allowing Subaru's coat sleeve to fall and reveal the wounds from the confessional. "You need to get mopped up. I don't want you bleeding all over the place."

* * *

_This is the worst idea I have ever had in my life. Subaru, what are you _doing? 

Subaru winced as Seishirou pulled a stitch tighter and pushed the needle through Subaru's cleaned skin. They were kneeling in Seishirou's living room with opened gauze packages, surgical thread, and a used syringe spread across the coffee table around Subaru's forearm. Seishirou was wearing his eyeglasses, and had removed his overcoat and suit jacket and had rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. Subaru had hung his bloody, white trenchcoat in the hall closet, which was vacant save for Seishirou's trenchcoat. Before arriving at the apartment, Seishirou had stopped by his office and retrieved a local anesthetic, packages of gauze and dressing, antibiotic ointments, and material for stitches, claiming that it was fine to use on humans.

"…you've never dressed my wounds since..."

"I'm opening my heart to you, Subaru-kun."

"Seishirou-san, come on…"

Subaru held still while Seishirou tied off the final line of stitches, washed his newly-closed wounds with a strong disinfectant, and wrapped his forearm in gauze and ace bandage. Seishirou stood and gathered up the discarded packaging, walking to the kitchen trash can.

"The anesthetic will wear off soon. Don't panic if you can't feel things for an hour or so."

Subaru stood up slowly and waved his arm experimentally. Seishirou had done a good job with the bandage; it was sturdy and would withstand a great deal of motion. And not for one moment had Subaru forgotten just why he was in Seishirou's apartment.

…_I've made a huge mistake…_

"…thank you."

"You're welcome."

Seishirou washed his hands and returned to the living room, removing and folding his glasses and setting them on the table, and sitting down on the black leather couch. The apartment, though a new location, had the same furniture and furnishings it had during The Year, but now felt sleek-and-modern as opposed to warm-and-modern. It was much larger than Seishirou's old apartment, almost a penthouse and worth more per month than an average family's annual income. Now that Seishirou was not pretending to be a humble veterinarian, he was at leisure to dip into his family's coffers.

"Do you want a cigarette?" said Seishirou.

Subaru stared down at him, arm still outstretched. "…I'm fine."

"You sure?" Seishirou nodded toward the opened Mild Sevens box beside a crystal ashtray. "This is your last chance for a while."

Subaru snapped his arm down in disbelief. "…how can you be so casual about this?" he whispered. "We've never done this before."

Seishirou shrugged. "Am I not being seductive enough for you? You're welcome to leave if you don't think you'll be able to get it up."

Subaru gaped. Seishirou started laughing.

"Oh, please tell me you at least know how this is going to work."

"Of _course_ I know how this is going to work," Subaru snapped.

"Well, then." Seishirou settled back into the couch and spread his arms across its back. "Do you want to begin?"

"…I cannot believe you."

"We have to start somewhere, Subaru-kun. Let's just start where we left off in front of the church, before we spoiled the mood with more mundane concerns."

"Um."

Subaru watched Seishirou for a moment, gauging the other man's position and intentions, decided that they were relatively straightforward, and leaned down nose-to-nose, bracing himself on the back of the couch over Seishirou's shoulders. He licked his lips and took a stabilizing breath, shaking, subconsciously tipping his head, barely grazing Seishirou's lips with his own in the process and feeling the heat off of Seishirou's face. Though Seishirou was still, Subaru felt a jolt pass through them at the touch. They were breathing into each other's mouths in short, shallow bursts, both fighting to keep control. Subaru licked his lips nervously and steeled himself.

_No turning back now, Subaru. This is the point of no return. Go for it._

"No inhibitions," Subaru whispered on Seishirou's lips. "That's part of our deal."

Seishirou exhaled through his nose in amusement, blowing on Subaru's cheek. "…and if you win, this is your last time to talk to Sakurazuka Seishirou as you know him, right?"

"You talk too damn much."

Subaru kissed Seishirou softly, parting his lips to see how the dark onmyouji would react. Seishirou opened his mouth further and pulled Subaru onto his lap with his hand on Subaru's narrow lower back, stabilizing Subaru and deepening the kiss. Subaru wrapped his bare arms around Seishirou's neck and pulled himself against Seishirou's chest, straddling Seishirou's waist and gasping into Seishirou's mouth as his crotch ground against Seishirou's, awkwardly given that Subaru could not maneuver his legs on the couch so that the two men would be flush with one another. They were both starting to get erections; the friction sent spasms up Subaru's spine. Subaru closed his eyes and ground harder against Seishirou's crotch, making undulating, circular motions, sucking air through his teeth as Seishirou hissed softly and scooted further to the edge of the couch, pressing Subaru more completely against him.

Seishirou chuckled softly. "What did you expect to happen, Subaru-kun?"

"I thought I told you to shut up."

Subaru stood, still straddling Seishirou's thighs, and tilted Seishirou's head up, running his hands through the older man's hair. As Seishirou stood Subaru traced the sides of his head with his fingertips and caught his arms around Seishirou's neck, craning his neck and pulling Seishirou down into a deep, devouring kiss. Seishirou moved one of the hands on Subaru's lower back up the bony curve of Subaru's spine, stroking with his thumb, as he pulled Subaru against his body, grinding enough to make Subaru groan into his mouth and go momentarily blind.

"Good?" Seishirou gasped around their kiss, then hissed as Subaru seized him by the hair.

"Are you just in love with your own voice, or are you doing this to drive me insane?" They were both breathing heavily, chests rising and falling against one another's. Seishirou gave Subaru an open-mouthed smile.

"…sorry. I won't say another word."

"Good."

Subaru pulled Seishirou back down into another hungry kiss and released him slightly, kneading the taller man's scalp and savoring the smooth, clean texture of his hair and the devouring movements of his jaw against his mouth and tongue against his own. Seishirou kneaded Subaru's lower back and pulled Subaru hard into his body, forcing Subaru's legs to part slightly around his and supporting Subaru as Subaru moaned—_again, gods, man, what were you expecting?—_and moved against Seishirou unconsciously, pulling the taller man down so forcefully that he almost fell flat on his back. Seishirou caught him and followed his momentum down, still devouring and lapping Subaru's mouth, then suddenly shifted Subaru onto his upper arm and swung Subaru's legs out from under him, lifting the white onmyouji in his arms with a grunt.

Subaru thought he was going to have a heart attack. Seishirou adjusted Subaru's weight and started laughing.

For a moment, Subaru desperately wished he had a hat to pull over his face.

"You've gotten bigger, but this still feels about right, doesn't it, Subaru-kun?"

Subaru rested his head in the crook of Seishirou's shoulder and closed his eyes, quietly catching his breath and fighting the urge to curl up and nuzzle against the taller man. Seishirou carried Subaru down the cool corridor into the bedroom, which was ill-lit with the last purple light of sunset filtered through the storm-clouds. He dropped the younger man onto the bed and fell on top of him; Subaru caught his shoulders suddenly and used his own momentum to flip their positions, pinning Seishirou's shoulders to the soft bed and glaring down at him, centimeters from his face, trapping Seishirou's thighs between his knees. Subaru licked his lips and took a deep breath.

"Things have changed, Seishirou-san." He licked his lips again. Seishirou was arching his eyebrows. _I'm hungry. I'm so hungry, Seishirou-san._ "I've changed."

"…I can see that." Seishirou trailed his hand up Subaru's spine from his rear and applied pressure to the small of Subaru's back, pushing the ends of their erections together through their pants and thrusting up slightly, just enough to nuzzle Subaru's with his own. Subaru took a sharp breath as Seishirou repeated his cycling, grinding motion, the latter smiling slightly at Subaru's reaction and taking quiet, open-mouthed breaths. He trailed his fingertips lightly over Subaru's lower abdomen, teasing around the hem of his sweater and making Subaru close his eyes and clutch harder as molten fire surged through his core, fueling the erection that was already being ground. Subaru opened his eyes dizzily and forced himself to focus on Seishirou's eyes, trying to gauge the man's thoughts as he stared back, breathing quietly and heavily. Intermittently either man would close his eyes for a moment or take a deep breath, both trying to make the undulation in their concentration as slight as possible.

Seishirou licked his lips slightly and traced his fingertips across Subaru's abdomen to his lower back. Subaru's spine tensed; a familiar, crooked smile was tracing the corners of Seishirou's mouth—

"…didn't you say 'no inhibitions'?"

He pulled Subaru down _hard, _grinding up as hard as he could at the same time and gasping, closing his eyes for a split second as Subaru barked in shock, the latter digging into Seishirou's shoulders with his nails and screwing his eyes shut in pleasure. Subaru released Seishirou's shoulders and rested his forearms on the soft bed, weaving his good arm under Seishirou's shoulder and pulling the latter closer to him, grinding his own hips and panting, kissing Seishirou softly, repeatedly. Their erections were being squeezed between their groins, awkwardly rolling around at the movement; the underside and tip of Subaru's cock were being rubbed against the fabric of his boxers. He carefully moved his injured hand down between Seishirou's back and the bed and slid it into the hem of Seishirou's pants, playing with the hem of Seishirou's boxers and lightly fingering the small of his back. Seishirou arced into Subaru's groin and purred slightly, catching one of Subaru's soft kisses and nipping at Subaru's lip, encouraging Subaru to kiss him deeply. Subaru unwound his arms from under Seishirou's body and cradled Seishirou's head, running his fingers deeply through the other man's hair and stroking beside his temple with his thumb. Seishirou ran his hands to rest along Subaru's back, one upper, one lower, and rubbed the younger man's shoulders, kissing Subaru softly between deep, hungry kisses.

_I wish I could die before I wake up from this. Seishirou-san, do you know how happy you would make me if you killed me right now?_ _This is the happiest day of my life. _

And the Sandman was under Subaru's skin, noting every sensation and word, every sound and detail, every emotion and rush. Tears leaked out of Subaru's eyes onto Seishirou's cheeks.

And Seishirou gently brushed them away with his thumb.

_I love you, Seishirou-san._

_

* * *

You can never go home._

_

* * *

_"_I can't imagine a guy that doesn't like ghost stories, Subaru."_

_Thunder shook the apartment complex. It was pitch-dark and turbulent, heavy curtains drawn over the windows. There was no power._

"_I work with ghosts all day, Nee-san. There isn't much you can tell me that will spook me."_

"_Come on!" Hokuto held a flashlight under her chin and made a hideous, grinning face, wagging her tongue menacingly. "The devil's going to eat you, Su-ba-ru…"_

"_All right, Nee-san…"_

_The door closed. Subaru heard Seishirou toe off his shoes and walk down the hallway. Subaru curled up slightly in his corner of the couch. Sitting in the living room with his sister while Seishirou was out checking the fuse box was cozy and…cohesive, safe… in a way he could scarcely articulate to himself, let alone anybody else. He had been trying to think of a way to talk to Hokuto about the feeling, but Seishirou had returned too soon._

"_The fuse box isn't doing us any good." Seishirou padded into the room and sat down between the twins. "It's really coming down out there."_

"_Sei-chan, do you have any good ghost stories?"_

"Do _I? Is that what you guys are doing?"_

"_Don't tell me you're a killjoy like Subaru."_

"_Of course I'm not!" Seishirou snatched Hokuto's flashlight and flashed it under his own chin, cackling. Hokuto whacked him with a pillow._

"_You're not scary at all, Sei-chan! There's nothing intense or scary about you no matter how hard you try!"_

"_You're breaking my heart, Hokuto-chan."_

"_Well, what's your story?"_

_Seishirou took a deep, dramatic breath and closed his eyes, mock-serious. Thunder exploded and shook the apartment again. Subaru looked at him over his shoulder, fighting to keep from smiling. _

_He was afraid when Seishirou made him feel like smiling. Afraid because he was giddy._

"_In another dimension, just on the other side of this one… maybe through your mirror or in your closet, there's a door to this dimension…" Seishirou took a deep breath and whispered, barely audible over the downpour outside. "…is a sakura tree that drinks the blood of the corpses beneath its roots."_

"_Oh,_ come on, _Sei-chan—"_

"_I'm not done yet." Seishirou took another deep, dramatic breath, and paused for effect. Subaru, still curled up on his end of the couch, stared at the wall. _

Where have I heard this—

"…_countless people have been buried beneath the tree as its victims, its food… and their blood colors the blossoms pink." Seishirou leaned over to Subaru and whispered in his ear. "Do you know why sakura blossoms are pink, Subaru-kun?"_

"_Because they drink the blood of the corpses below," Subaru said vaguely, still staring at the wall. His cheeks were getting hot._ A young man with dark hair and a cold, wild smile, staring at him, asking him 'Do you know—'

"_Nobody can be free after having been captive of the sakura," said Seishirou, straightening. Subaru took a deep, stabilizing breath. "The souls it catches remain trapped in its branches for eternity—"_

"…do not let the sakura seduce you, Subaru-san. Never. Never allow them to confuse your mind and heart."

"—_You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."_

_Subaru caught his breath, vaguely listening to the thunder as Hokuto argued that those lines were from an American rock song, and that Seishirou was not being scary at all, as was par for the course for him. This was the second time Seishirou had mentioned sakura trees in conjunction with blood or corpses; this was one of the few times Seishirou-san had gone ice cold and alien…_

"…do not let the sakura seduce you, Subaru-san. Never. Never allow them to confuse your mind and heart."

Obaa-chan, is this what you were talking about? It can't be. Seishirou-san's not… anything to be afraid of, is he? He's just Seishirou-san. That's all.

"_Fine, do you want me to make it scary, Hokuto-chan?"_

"_YES, I want you to make it scary."_

"_Scary enough to scare Subaru-kun?"_

"_Yes, scary enough to scare Subaru! He needs to be shaken out of his shell. You remember; we talked about this."_

"_Talked about_ what?" _Subaru blurted._

_Seishirou looked at Subaru out of the corners of his eyes for a long time, during which Subaru edged into the corner of the couch and watched him warily. Seishirou looked dead serious, almost scornful. Subaru swallowed._

"_What, Seishirou-san?"_

_Seishirou stared._

"_Seishirou-san, what—"_

_Seishirou attacked Subaru and tickled his flanks and stomach, almost hard enough to bruise. Subaru yelled in shock and tried to jump away, pulling both of them off the couch onto the floor. Hokuto screamed in delight and pulled her legs up onto the couch as Subaru frantically tried to worm away from Seishirou, begging and laughing hysterically, eyes watering, but Seishirou grasped his shoulders and pulled him back underneath, flipping Subaru onto his back and tickling even harder, grinning. Subaru thrashed and pounded Seishirou's shoulders, screaming at Seishirou to stop, that he was ticklish, that this wasn't fair, please, please stop, but Seishirou laughed and pushed his attack further under Subaru's shirt, onto Subaru's chest and upper back, deliberately rubbing Subaru's nipples alternately with his flanks and sides. Subaru screamed and arced into Seishirou's hands, writhing, his back wracking with spasms. It was maddening; Subaru was sure that he was going to go insane if Seishirou did not stop, but by the same token he desperately wanted to drown, even if he went mad and blind. The alternating sensation was so shockingly intense, conducted by his already agitated nerves to a frightening level. Subaru was sure he was going to explode or black out._

"_You're captive, Subaru-kun. You're_ mine."

"_Go, Sei-chan! Go! Wooo!"_

"—_Seishirou-san,_ please_!—"_

_Seishirou stopped and pinned Subaru's shoulders to the floor, leaning nose-to-nose with Subaru and staring as Subaru panted and collected his shot nerves. As Subaru's vision re-defined itself and his back unwound he realized how close Seishirou was; he stared back and tried to worm away weakly, unsuccessfully. He felt that Hokuto was holding her breath. _

_His heart started pounding. Seishirou's smile was gone._

"_Have you ever kissed anybody before, Subaru-kun?"_

"_N-n-no—"_

"_Good. Because I'm determined to be your first and only one."_

_Subaru was not sure whether or not he heard Hokuto squeak. He took a deep, stabilizing breath and stared, afraid to lick his lips lest it break the fragile silence. His heart was pounding in his ears. Seishirou tilted his head slightly to fit his lips against Subaru's, barely brushing them with his own. Subaru closed his eyes and parted his lips slightly, heart hammering, and breathed in Seishirou's breath—_

_Seishirou jerked away and started tickling him again, laughing madly. Subaru howled in shock and grabbed at Seishirou's hands, curling into a ball and trying to trap the fingers under his body, vaguely hearing Hokuto scream that Seishirou was a pussy. Subaru did not know if his eyes were tearing up from the sheer physical sensation, or from a crushing feeling of anticlimax, some sort of forlorn longing, something that was denied to him. _

_Something he wanted, but he did not yet understand what exactly it was._

"_I'll win you over yet, Subaru-kun. For the sake of our love! You belong to me!"_

"_Sei-chan, you IDIOT!"_


	4. Subaru's Small Salvation

_It stormed the entire night. When I woke up, I was hoping I would be in his arms. He held me so tightly after he came his first round inside me, and rested his head on mine for so long, that I thought I had never seen him more vulnerable at any point in his life. For a while I think he was holding me in his sleep, as though he never wanted to let me go. As if he wanted to possess me the rest of his life. And I had never felt so fulfilled and safe in my life as I had at that time. _

_Or maybe that was the Sandman wrecking his justice for my crimes. And if it wasn't, only the Sandman knows what he was thinking._

_

* * *

_Subaru awoke alone in Seishirou's bed, shifting between the sheets and burying his face in Seishirou's vacated pillow to inhale the other man's scent, which, compared to his scent during waking hours, was far more tinged with blood, sakura, and soap. Seishirou's pillow was still damp and smelled strongly of the shampoo with which Subaru had washed his hair the previous night. Like Subaru's sheets, Seishirou's breathed secondhand smoke and musty cologne; this morning, they also hinted sweat and semen.

_The Sandman sees everything. And the Sandman never sleeps._

Subaru stroked Seishirou's pillow and inhaled, resting his cheek against the cool, damp fabric and hugging it above his head, gingerly avoiding placing weight on his injured arm. He was sore as all hell in more places than one and, though he was sure he had flushed all of the semen and lubricant out of his system in the shower last night, he still felt uncommonly sticky between his legs. He was leaden and lethargic, wanting to burrow into their now-communal nest of cool, heavy blankets and nestle into both Seishirou's individual scent and the scent of their sex. His bandaged arm brushed his cheek; he remembered Seishirou meticulously cleaning and sewing his injured arm, his eyeglasses and gentle, knowledgeable demeanor reminding Subaru far too much of the veterinarian with whom he had fallen in love nine years ago. He reminded Subaru of a man who did not exist.

Subaru never wanted to forget any of this. The exact balance of scents, the dry, clean texture of linen, the exact weight of Seishirou's comforter, the temperature and low light-level in the room, the view of the room from every angle he turned his head, from nightstand to opposite wall—everything. He spent what seemed like hours memorizing and immersing himself in every facet of his position, cataloging Seishirou's personal world, a world which had sheltered him and their actions the previous night, all corners and objects in the room watching accusingly, pointedly, extensions on their masters' behalf.

Right now, it was _theirs_.

Subaru was finally goaded out of bed to use the restroom, aware that if he did not take this opportunity to stay awake he would languish in the bed until Seishirou came in to see if he was still alive. He washed his hands and face and stared at his haggard, forlorn reflection, still very much his own, still with the off-center, half-blind gaze he associated with Seishirou, but very much aware of the previous night. The door to Seishirou's shower-room was reflected over Subaru's right shoulder; Subaru stared at it, wondering if the shower curtain was still in its same position, the bottle of shampoo still knocked over, the tiles still damp. He sighed heavily and, after borrowing Seishirou's suction cup and wash solution to clean his prosthetic eye, forced himself out of the bathroom lest he get caught up and waste more time, found his boxers under the bed and pulled them on, and walked out to the kitchen.

It was apparently not as late as Subaru thought it was. The sun was still well before its midday zenith, and Seishirou was seated at the kitchen table clad only in his pants, smoking and looking out the window; his movements and posture vague. As Subaru moved through the doorway Seishirou looked up with a faint, nearly-invisible flicker of…_something_, though what exactly Subaru did not know… before the flicker dissipated in place of his usual countenance and he slid his cigarette package across the table toward Subaru, nodding toward his kitchen. Subaru caught the package and pulled out a cigarette.

"There's food in there, if you want. I made a full breakfast for us, but since you were so long in coming out I set most of the dishes back there. Plates are in the second cabinet from the fridge."

"I'm not hungry. Do you have a light?"

"I can't see how that possibly is, Subaru-kun." Seishirou flicked his lighter and held it up to the end of Subaru's cigarette as the latter leaned over the table. Subaru sat down and sighed, exhaling smoke, relieved that his nicotine reserves were finally being replenished. "You should have worked up quite an appetite last night."

"Hm."

"Besides, I went to all of this effort to cook for you; the least you can do is humor me, Subaru-kun." Seishirou leaned on his hand and smiled. "Do you want to hurt my feelings?"

Subaru glared at Seishirou groggily. "…it would be a nice change of pace."

"Oh, Subaru-kun, you can't hold grudges like this for so long. The past is behind us. Don't you think it's about time you let all of this business about your sister go? It's been over eight years."

"It's been over eight by ten months, and Nee-san is not the only issue I have with you."

"You keep obsessively meticulous records." Seishirou arched his eyebrows. "Are these the kind of things you bring up with the man you just lost your virginity to? Not very polite, given the circumstances." Seishirou laughed quietly. Subaru narrowed his eyes. "You know, for a virgin, Subaru-kun, you must be a natural or something."

"You said that _several_ times last night."

"Did I?"

"And who did you lose _your_ virginity to, Seishirou-san?"

"My mother."

Subaru rolled his eyes and tapped his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. Seishirou was leaning on his hand and watching with a smoldering grin. "Oh, I must have forgotten about that."

"She taught me well, wouldn't you say?"

_Whoever taught this man taught him pretty damn well._ Subaru took a long drag of his cigarette and stared out the window pointedly, remembering clearly the previous night. Molten lead surged through his core. He closed his eyes and took a quiet breath, warding off an impending arousal. _You blew my mind, Seishirou-san. You know it; I don't need to give you the satisfaction of hearing me say it._

Somebody had once told Subaru that after having sex with somebody, it was far more comfortable to sit in the same room together in silence; now he understand exactly what she had meant. Seishirou walked into the kitchen and started fixing Subaru a plate of cold breakfast food while Subaru walked to the closet and rummaged in his coat pockets for his cell phone, finding Erik's necklace in the process. The blood on the left sleeve along the rips had long since dried.

Subaru stared at the necklace for a long time.

"…Seishirou-san…"

Seishirou set Subaru's plate on the table and looked up, waiting. Subaru watched him quietly, terrified of asking the question, terrified of getting an answer. Terrified of breaking the silence.

He knew the answer before Seishirou said it.

"You lose again, Subaru-kun."

* * *

_There's this little secret I really haven't told anybody about, Nee-san. I don't think you would be so proud of me if you knew about it. When I was seventeen, I overdosed on sleeping pills. The doctors said I was lucky not to have dropped into a permanent coma. That was the goal, though. I wasn't trying to kill myself; that would be giving up on my true wish before it had any chance to occur. At least I care about myself enough to want my wish, right?_

_Right, Nee-san?_

_Somebody once told me: "A dream is a wish your heart makes when you're fast asleep." I wanted my dreams, those wishes that only came true when I was asleep, to be my new reality. I never wanted to wake up. You see, the Sandman knows what you most desire, and he can only break your heart if he can take away your fantasies when morning comes. Even if I had as many nightmares as I had good dreams, they were nightmares because they involved Seishirou-san, and at least part of the time, he was _there_. And that was all that mattered. The nightmares I feared most were the ones where Seishirou-san was gone forever. But the chance that I might spend an eternity with 'him' in my dreams was worth it._

_When I did wake up in the hospital, and I remembered that you had scarified your life to pull me out of a 'sleep' like the one I had tried to drown myself in with the pills, I felt worse than I had ever felt in my life. Worse than when Seishirou-san lost his eye, because this time, it had been my actions that had been at fault for what happened._

_It was then that I finally decided to let the Sandman rule the night, and I would _live _during the day, no matter how hard it was. This division is my relief and my torture. The Kamui of the Dragons of Earth can only grant my last-ditch wishes, those wishes I made given this 'reality' as it is. He can never grant the deepest, most impossible wish in my heart._

_I just want to go home._

_

* * *

I guess this is where I keep that promise to you, Monsieur Erik. I wasn't able to change him after all._

Subaru leaned over a bridge railing at the Sakurazuka family shrine, staring into the icy water, slush broken by rocks and flows within the current. The orange-and-black koi that once populated the brook had fled, leaving a desolate flow dappled by eternally-blooming sakura blossoms. He had caught a drifting blossom and was pressing it against his lips, hugging himself tightly against the cold in his thin coat.

_This is where I begin and end. Me, Sumeragi Subaru; I'm tied to this place, this lineage. This is where the man I love was born a raised; this is where he was made who he is today. This, and the government training facilities, is where his identity was shaped. This is where his mother aided in creating the psychopath. This hallowed ground is where his mother taught him to make love as he did to me, taught him to be cold and indifferent, taught him that he has no identity of his own. No emotions, no feeling. Nothing. This is where the course of my life, and my identity, was shaped, along with his. And perhaps this is the only place he has ever, in his entire life, been influenced. I would like to think the Sumeragi shrine holds the same cradle of identity for him as his shrine does to me, but I imagine he would just admire our fish and flowers, and walk on._

_  
Never looking back._

_But this is the cradle of my identity, and I have done a lot of thinking these past few weeks, Monsieur. The things which influence us have as much bearing on our identity as the nature with which we were born, and that influence spreads like a ripple through everybody we meet in this life. And we're all interconnected through lines and lines of history, occurrences time cannot number and quantify. The day a man decided to make the Sakurazuka line the heartless killers they are, that man decided the identity of Sumeragi Subaru thirteen generations later._

_I have slowly come to believe in a pre-ordained fate, for how else could this have been determined? It is too maddening to think anything else is possible. Or, maybe, I've always been predisposed to this, sort of. Nee-san always said I loved everybody outside of myself, but had no sense of what was in my own heart. Maybe as long as I've been alive I haven't had much of an idea of who I really am. _

_But I have also come to see who I am beyond all of this, maybe just a little bit. And maybe that's my small salvation. Because the more I know about myself and the hold Seishirou-san has over me, the more I can see where he ends and I begin. I, Sumeragi Subaru, who stands alone. The Subaru Hokuto and Kamui and everybody else sees in me, those who have no idea who Sakurazuka Seishirou is. And the way I shaped myself after Seishirou-san… is _my _reaction. Is the reaction of that 'Subaru' that was always there. In that way, the two are inseparable. That 'Subaru' is a product of Seishirou, but I think there are three people on this earth who have seen past that 'Subaru' to one that lies deeper, one that was there since my birth, before my fate had shaped me into what I am today._

_And I would very much like to talk to all of them and get to know myself better._

_Despite all of this thinking and all of the things I've straightened out with myself, I am still the captive of the sakura, and the Sandman has passed no merciful judgment over me. I guess, if anything, what I did shot myself in the foot; the dreams have gotten worse. And I'm even more captive than I once was._

_I wonder how deep my obsession can get. My 'wish' is for him to kill me; I wonder what exactly that says about my sense of identity. I would love nothing more than to die in his arms, thinking only of him, forever one of his collection of souls. Even if he forgot me the very next day. Even if I was nothing but another soul in millions whose names he cannot remember. I'm afraid if this keeps up, I'll drop out of this world altogether someday. I don't think I would be able to _live _if he ever walked out of my life. God, that thought scares me. I'm so obsessed with Seishirou-san that if he ever left, I would cease to exist. I'd stop caring._

_I want to figure things out before that happens. Because, I think, for the first time in almost eight years, I _care _enough to do that. And I think you had a hand in waking me up to get to that state. It's… kind of a scary road to walk down, and I feel so alone when I do it, like I've lost everything that makes my life anything worthwhile, everything that makes Sumeragi Subaru, but I think I'm ready to start taking some small steps in that direction. And, in a sense, it makes me feel so _alive _in a way I haven't been in a long time. Maybe I'm scared of that feeling of _living _anymore. Or something. Kind of like when you burn yourself and you're afraid to touch metal for a long time._

_Thank you._

_I want you to have this, now._

Subaru pulled Christine's necklace out of his pocket and held it over the brook by its chain. It swung slightly with its drop-momentum.

_I hope you found salvation in heaven, Monsieur Erik. I believe your soul rests with Madame Christine's and my sister's, now. Maybe, someday, if I am able to join you, I will see you again. And I hope somebody will join me to stand by my side in heaven. Maybe then, finally, I can leave a mark on his soul._

_

* * *

_"That poor boy is sorely mistaken about how he stands with you."

"They say nothing is as painful as unrequited love."

"I think that's pretty relative when you get right down to it."

"Why? You, of all people, should be agreeing with me, Monsieur."

Erik knelt in the slushy brook and retrieved Christine's necklace from a reed-bed, cradling the precious jewelry in his translucent hands. His face was still fully-healed. Seishirou smiled and flicked a dead cigarette from between his fingers, clumsily due to friction from his leather gloves.

"Foolish boy. I gave this to him so I'd never pick it back up. Now I'll never work up the willpower to get rid of it again." Erik turned the ring over in his hands for a moment, thinking, before he looked up sharply and stared at Seishirou.

"You shield-spelled this. That's why… but when did you do this?"

Seishirou smiled quietly. Erik shook his head and looped the necklace around his neck.

"I have a question for you, Sakurazuka-san."

"What is it?"

"Do you think all people who do bad things are just lonely?"

Seishirou shrugged. "I honestly wouldn't know."

"I see."

Erik straightened and stared at Seishirou for a long time, then smiled to himself. Seishirou stared back at him.

"What?"

"The Sandman will be your judge too, Sakurazuka-san."

Seishirou stared at Erik. The ghost touched the brim of his Fedora and bowed, returning to the afterlife.

"God grant you peace, Sakurazuka-san. God knows you need it."


End file.
